Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress would make sweeping changes to the United States Postal Service (USPS), which would inevitably have an impact on Canadian magazines with mail circulation south of the border.

Lobbyists for the U.S. magazine industry have been critical of the bill by Congressman Darrell Issa of California, which would reduce delivery to 5 days a week (ending Saturday delivery), require all "market dominant" products to cover costs while maintaining a CPI price cap and and require those products which are below 90% of cost recovery to pay 5% above the cap annually.

According to a story in Audience Development, MPA -- The Association of Magazine Media (formerly the Magazine Publishers of America) said it continued to question the USPS calculation of attributable costs for periodicals. And American Business Media said while the bill has some provisions it likes, others would be potentially damaging to its members -- and estimated that the anticipated CPI increases would result in more than 20% increase in costs over the next three years.

The American Postal Workers Union called the bill "a reckless assault on postal workers and the Postal Service" and said that it would result in drastic service cuts, resulting in $2 billion worth of facility closures in the next two years.